Prosocial virtual reality, empathy, and EEG measures: A pilot study aimed at monitoring emotional processes in intergroup helping behaviors

During a non-invasive procedure, participants both helped and helped by a confederate with features that create social distance (membership in an ethnic outgroup or another social group). For this purpose, we created a set of virtual scenarios in which the confederate's ethnicity (white vs. black) and appearance (business man vs. beggar, with casual dress as a control condition) were crossed. The study aimed to explore how the emotional reactions of participants changed according to the confederate's status signals as well as signals that they belong to the same or a different ethnic group. Participants' alertness, calmness, and engagement were monitored using electroencephalogram (EEG) during the original virtual reality (VR) video sessions. Participants' distress and empathy when exposed to helping interactions were self-assessed after the VR video sessions. The results pointed out that, irrespective of whether they helped the confederate or were helped by him/her, white participants showed higher levels of alertness when exposed to helping interactions involving a white beggar or a black businessman, and their emotional calmness and engagement were higher when interacting with a black beggar or a white businessman. The results for self-assessed distress and empathy followed the same tendency, indicating how physiological and self-assessed measures can both contribute to a better understanding of the emotional processes in virtual intergroup helping situations. Based on the presented results, the methodological and practical implications of VR in terms of enhancing self-reflective capacities in intergroup helping processes are discussed.